In the silence that followed, they could hear the fire crackling and hissing. No one contradicted Nablus, but eventually Ibelin asked, “What of King Richard? Will he too return to England?”
“England?” Sablé shrugged. “Perhaps, but his heart is in Aquitaine, and the heart of his domains is Anjou. Philip of France can be counted on to attack him in either place, or in Normandy. He will go back to defend his heritage. I am sure of it. Did you think otherwise?”
Ibelin had not put his thoughts and hopes into words before, and he found it somewhat awkward. Still, the company here was trustworthy, and whatever else one thought of them individually, they were sworn by their oaths when they joined their respective orders to fight for the Holy Land. “King Richard’s grandfather was half-brother of King Baldwin III and King Amalric. Richard’s father is first cousin to Baldwin IV, Sibylla, and Isabella. A legal case could be made to exclude women from the succession altogether, and declare Richard of England the legal heir to the throne of Jerusalem.”
The suggestion took both Masters by surprise. Nablus asked, a little scandalized, “Does your wife know you advocate disinheriting her daughter?”
“No,” Ibelin admitted. “I have not discussed this with her or my stepdaughter—but the situation is . . .” he paused, looking for the right word, “desperate. If King Richard could be persuaded to remain here as King of Jerusalem, we would have an honest chance of recapturing our lost territories—and more: of retaining them even after the bulk of the army returns to the West.”
The Masters turned to look at one another, and a ray of hope seemed to cast a spark of light into the dark room. “Will you put it to him?” Nablus finally asked his colleague.
“Of course,” Sablé agreed. “Of course.”
Beit Nuba, Palestine, January 1192
King Richard arrived in Beit Nuba late on January 3. He had successfully ambushed a Turkish patrol that had been lurking outside of Beit Nuba to kill or capture the stragglers still coming in. On January 4, he summoned Balian d’Ibelin.
Balian went warily. He presumed Sablé had informed the King of his suggestion, but Toron would also have informed him that Balian had represented Montferrat in negotiations with Salah ad-Din. Balian was unsure what sort of reception he would receive, particularly after the catcalls from King Richard’s troops.
King Richard was housed in the Templar commandery, and he had taken advantage of the baths. He was freshly washed, glowing from the scrubbing down and smelling of balsam oil, when Ibelin was admitted. His hair had grown back surprisingly thick and curly after he’d lost it to Arnoldia, and it shimmered in the candlelight, his still-wet beard glistening. He had removed his chain mail and was dressed only in shirt, hose, and a surcoat with exquisite embroidery. “My lord of Ibelin. Welcome.” he opened in a firm voice that was neither loud nor soft. “Join me.” He indicated a table with a magnificent mosaic surface, the work of Greek craftsmen.
Ibelin bowed his head first, then cautiously took the chair indicated.
“I have to admit, I wasn’t sure you would rejoin the army after you left us in October,” Richard opened.
“I wasn’t sure I would be welcomed back,” Ibelin countered.
Richard raised his eyebrows and looked at him sidelong. “Why not?”
“‘There goes Balian d’Ibelin, as treacherous as a gobelin.’” Ibelin quoted simply.
Richard snorted and shrugged. “Toron made no secret that you were negotiating with Salah ad-Din on Montferrat’s behalf. It didn’t go down well with my men.”
“Why is it all right for you to negotiate and not Montferrat?” Ibelin asked.
“Because Montferrat represents no one but himself!” the Lionheart snapped back, adding in a calmer tone, “While I am trying to make a deal that would secure the Holy Land for Christ.”
“By marrying your sister to al-Adil?” Ibelin’s tone was carefully moderate. He didn’t want to sound outright mocking—it was rarely wise to mock a king—but nevertheless he wanted to express his skepticism.
The King of England was taken off guard. He had attempted to keep the terms of that particular proposal very secret, especially after his sister suggested to him that it was all a joke and a ruse. “How did you hear about that?” he asked sharply.
“Al-Adil was rather pleased with himself for coming up with proposal; he made no secret of it. Sidon heard of it directly from him.”
“Then he was serious?” King Richard found himself asking, his eyes watching Ibelin alertly.
“I’m sure he would have been very pleased to be made King of Jerusalem, with all the land previously held by the Frankish kings. Your sister, on the other hand, would have found herself imprisoned in a harem or simply discarded the moment you sailed away. It would have been a perfect, bloodless way for the Saracens to win the war, reclaim all the territory you have reconquered, get rid of you and the crusaders, and insult you into the bargain.”
“What do you mean, insult me?”
“A woman’s male relatives are always dishonored when she is repudiated by her husband, because in the Muslim tradition the woman is always to blame for any marital discord. In short, the Queen of Sicily would have been publicly declared unworthy of al-Adil, and you would have been the laughingstock of the entire Muslim world.”
King Richard was slowly flushing with anger as he grasped the magnitude of the hoax they had been playing on him. “Then it is well done,” he said in a tight voice, “that I said I needed papal approval for the match—unless al-Adil converted to Christianity.”
“Yes, that should put an end to the proposal,” Ibelin agreed steadily. “Al-Adil is no more likely to convert to Christianity than you are to Islam.”
“Let us return to your own negotiations, then. You were there on behalf of Montferrat—which is damned near treason to the Christian cause!” The English King’s tone had turned belligerent.
“How?”
“He proposed falling on my flank and fighting his fellow Christians!” the Lionheart snarled.
“Not when I was representing him,” Ibelin faced the Lionheart down.
“Meaning?”
“I refused to deliver that message, because I could not support it. If we could have secured peace in the north, and then concentrated our forces in the south, then it would have been a peace worth making.”
They stared at one another, measuring each other. The Plantagenet broke eye contact first. He helped himself to some of the nuts in a bowl on the table, then looked again at Ibelin. “And what of this proposal that I be crowned King of Jerusalem? Are you serious about it?”
“Utterly.”
“Would any of the other poulain lords support you?” King Richard asked next.
“Maybe. Probably,” Ibelin revised his answer.
“But you agree that an attack on Jerusalem at this time is pointless?”
“It was madness to even make an attempt in winter,” Ibelin countered. He added, “I thought you understood that when you argued at Acre that we had no more time to wait on Salah ad-Din. You justified the slaughter of the hostages in part because we needed to start the attack on Jerusalem during the campaign season.”
“You have no idea the pressure the French have put on me,” King Richard answered in an exasperated tone. The mere thought of the French made him so agitated that he sprang to his feet and began pacing. “I tried to convince them we should use the winter to secure and rebuild Ascalon. In fact, I tried to convince them that the key to Jerusalem lies in Cairo! If we attacked Cairo, we would force Salah ad-Din to abandon Palestine altogether and concentrate his forces in defense of his capital. If we could do enough damage in Egypt, he might even be forced into a treaty that acknowledged our right to Jerusalem and all the lands west of the Jordan for eternity!” King Richard explained his idea forcefully.
“King Amalric used to argue the same thing,” Ibelin pointed out coolly. “He made four attempts, you know, and he had the backing of the Greek Emperor and his flee
t. Egypt is not easy to conquer.”
The Plantagenet looked over at Ibelin with slightly narrowed eyes.
“Yes, my lord King,” Ibelin answered the unspoken question. “You are a far better general and a better leader of men than King Amalric. That is the reason I would gladly kneel in fealty to you as King of Jerusalem. But be warned, capturing Egypt is far more difficult than it looks.”
“So is capturing Jerusalem. Sablé told me your assessment of our chances.”
“My lord King, if I could hold it for nearly ten days with nothing but women, priests, and newly knighted youths, how long do you think the Sultan can hold it with five thousand battle-hardened Mamlukes—and no refugees clogging the streets and eating the rations?”
“Don’t misunderstand me,” King Richard assured him. “I share your assessment completely! That’s why I suggested taking Ascalon instead.” He paused, his eyes considering his guest alertly, and then conceded, “We have much in common, you and I. At least we see the situation here in very similar ways. You certainly understand— unlike the damned Duke of Burgundy—that we can’t win by force of arms alone. We have to negotiate! By God! Anything we can gain without bloodshed is worth twice what we win with men’s lives!” He paused and then asked bluntly, “What do you think of Toron as a negotiator?”
“He was in Saracen captivity for roughly two years and in that time became very close to Imad ad-Din.”
The King of England started. Why hadn’t anyone else told him that? “Are you saying he is in the Sultan’s pay?”
“Many of us have suspicions. Some of the barons held captive with him even accuse him of converting.”
“No! That’s not possible!” King Richard protested. “I’ve seen him go to Mass.”
“And he drinks wine. I do not think he is a secret Muslim, nor in Salah ad-Din’s pay. But a man without a backbone makes a poor negotiator, my lord King. He’s easily persuaded by whomever he is talking to, and he doesn’t know how to call a man’s bluff or when to take a stand. Or perhaps he knows when to take a stand, but no one takes his ‘stand’ seriously.”
“You stole his wife from him,” King Richard noted pointedly.
“First, she was not his wife, as she’d been forced into a marriage before the age of consent. Second, he failed to consummate the fraudulent marriage. And, third and most important, he failed to fight for his wife’s right and title to Jerusalem. I can’t imagine your father failing to support his wife’s claim to Aquitaine, can you?”
The Plantagenet burst out laughing. “My father not press his claim to anything he had a ghost of a right to? He would have taken holy orders first! Not to mention that had he failed to press my mother’s claim to Aquitaine, she would have skinned him alive.” He laughed again at the thought.
“Isabella is the rightful Queen of Jerusalem—and Toron, who claimed to be her husband, did homage to Guy de Lusignan.”
“But you, my lord, are ready to abandon her and her claim,” King Richard shot back.
“You don’t seem to fully understand me, my lord King.”
“Perhaps not. Explain yourself.”
“I am fighting for Jerusalem—not just for the city or the Kingdom, but for the people, too, for the Christians who lived here and made it a prosperous land, a land of milk and honey and also of art and knowledge. I will support whatever solution offers the greatest prospect of survival—sustainable survival, in freedom and Christianity—for Jerusalem’s people. Lusignan squandered his right to be King because he lost the Kingdom once already, and Toron gave Lusignan the chance to lose the Kingdom by failing to support his wife in the first place. Montferrat, on the other hand, seemed like a better alternative—but I will admit to you, I have been sorely disillusioned by him on many counts but most especially his latest offer to Salah ad-Din. He is, as you said, far more interested in his own position than in Jerusalem or its people. So, what is left? A man who comes from the same House as the last five monarchs of Jerusalem. A man who has already conquered the strategic ports of Acre and Jaffa. A man who can fight Salah ad-Din to a standstill. A man who, indeed, grasps the essential elements of warfare against the Saracens in this environment. I trust you to recapture the rest of the Kingdom and then to hold it—but not in a few months. Regaining the Kingdom will take years. You can restore the Kingdom to its former glory and more—but only if you are willing to take up the burden and stay here the rest of your life.”
“Sacrifice the Angevin empire my father built for Jerusalem?” Richard Plantagenet asked intently, his face flushed and his eyes burning.
“Yes. For the Holy Land.”
There was tense silence in the little room, and they could hear rain splattering on the shutters over the windows.
King Richard broke the tension. He nodded. “I will think about it, but it is not an easy choice. Not for me. I love Aquitaine, and I have spent the better part of my adult life fighting for it. I need to think—and pray. Meanwhile, tomorrow I will call a council of all the leaders to discuss our current situation. Master de Sablé has agreed to recommend withdrawal to the coast. Can I count on you backing him, my lord?”
“You can count on me, your grace,” Ibelin assured him.
King Richard smiled. “Thank you.” He held out his hand in a gesture of friendship and respect.
Ibelin hesitated for only a second, and then accepted it with a smile of his own.
Chapter 19
Ascalon, April 1192
ASCALON, TOO, HELD MEMORIES FOR BALIAN. It had been his first command—the first step on the ladder to independence, wealth, and power. It had been here that Maria Zoë had sought him out as a widow, here that they had discovered their love for one another. To Ascalon in 1177, King Baldwin had ridden from Jerusalem with 376 knights to lift a Saracen siege. From Ascalon they had sallied forth together to take the Sultan’s army in the rear. That had resulted in the stunning and complete defeat of Salah ad-Din at Montgisard. Balian’s memories of Ascalon were good ones.
Nor was the destruction here as complete or as vindictive as it had been at Ramla. The Sultan might have ordered the walls slighted, but he clearly harbored hopes of returning and reclaiming the city. The markets, baths, and houses were largely intact. Only the churches had been systematically plundered and trashed. While King Richard took up residence in the episcopal palace and the Duke of Burgundy claimed the palace of the Constable, Ibelin selected a caravansary near the Gaza Gate that could shelter his entire company and their horses. It was near some baths, and as the weather improved they welcomed the chance to bathe, repair their clothes and equipment, and regain some of their strength. They found their faith returning, too, as they worked together to rebuild the outer defenses of the city.
The vigor with which the reconstruction of Ascalon had been carried out had been impressive. King Richard had set an example by taking his place in the line of men passing stones up from the shore, where they had been tossed down by the Saracens. With the King of England stripped down to the waist as he manhandled one stone after another, no one else dared hold back. They had all pitched in, and under the guidance of master masons from Acre, they had rebuilt the walls at an astonishing pace.
Yet slowly discontent began festering again. On the one hand, the Marquis de Montferrat still refused to make common cause with the King of England, and on the other the French, now out of funds, demanded payment from the English King. King Richard—not unreasonably, Ibelin thought—was only willing to pay men who took an oath to obey him, something the bulk of the French were unwilling to do. By March thousands of French had abandoned the Frankish army at Ascalon, returning to a less arduous and less celibate existence in Acre or Tyre. Furthermore, the interminable rivalry between the Pisans and Genoese had escalated into outright violence, and at one point King Richard had been forced to return to Acre to end street fighting there.
Ibelin, however, refused to get discouraged. As the weather improved, the men remaining at Ascalon became increasingly active. They
called their forays “foraging” in search of fodder, but their main objective was to test the enemy’s defenses and morale. Surprisingly, they found the Saracen reponse weak, porous, and uncoordinated—which suggested that Salah ad-Din had been unable to keep his full force in the field or was experiencing desertions by elements of his army.
Ibelin managed to capture a dozen camels and more than two score of horses on one raid. That more than made up for their losses of the winter, and he was able to send the best horses back to his stud outside of Tyre. Another raid led by King Richard resulted in the rescue of nearly twelve hundred Christian slaves en route to the slave markets of Cairo. The Saracens escorting the slave convoy had spent the night at Darum and were surprised at dawn by the arrival of King Richard’s patrol. Recognizing the King’s banner, they had fled to the keep, abandoning their human cargo. King Richard and his knights had freed the captives.
On the return of the patrol, Ibelin had gone at once to see if any of the freed slaves were men or women from Ibelin, Ramla, or Mirabel. However, the bulk of the freed slaves were men captured during the current crusade, and the remainder were from Hebron, Tiberius, and Acre. There were no women among the slaves at all.
The ease with which the Franks were extending their hold in the countryside around Ascalon was highly encouraging, however. Not only was it indicative of Salah ad-Din’s waning strength, it also made the prospect of regaining continuous control of at least the coastal plain more plausible. More than once Ibelin found himself looking to the north, imagining he could see Ibelin or smell the blossoms of the now-flowering orchards.
It was an illusion, of course. They were too far away, and Ibelin had been destroyed. On the march south to Ascalon, the army had spent one night in the ruins. The castle had been a gutted hulk, the masonry blackened from the fires that had consumed the furnishings and carpentry. Most of the upper floors, supported by wooden beams, had come crashing down, leaving heaps of shattered tiles in the cellars. Sand had blown in off the dunes, covering the charred wreckage with layers of sifting sand that silted up the troughs in the stables. Only the certain knowledge that Ibelin had been abandoned and that neither man nor beast had been slaughtered here gave Balian any comfort. Roger Shoreham had taken every man, woman, and child out of Ibelin, and the garrison had escorted the little convoy of residents to Jerusalem.
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